Only the top protruded from the wrapping of scarf, but I looked at that, startled. The forces which could be channeled through such rare objects were more than just legends. We still named our years for beasts of old-Firedrake, Griffin, and there was a Year of the Unicorn.

We made our way from one bit of cover to the next until we came to the road. Orsya put up her hand in warning, though I did not need that gesture, for the runes on the sword ran red. There was no way of pa.s.sing over it, and we trailed impatiently along beside it until we came to where a stream cut across the land. There was no bridge to carry the road as one might suppose-rather the pavement ended abruptly on one bank to begin on the other, and Orsya smiled.

"So . . . as yet they have not mastered water."

"What is it?"

"Running water." She pointed to the stream. "Evil cannot cross it without some powerful, nature-twisting spell. They can build on one side and the other, but they cannot yet successfully span it. This is our road."

She splashed joyfully into the stream and perforce I followed. We kept well away from either bank, but as we pa.s.sed the two ends of the road, my sword appeared to drip crimson drops, so shimmering were the runes.

Once beyond the road I wished to go ash.o.r.e again, lest in the open river we be too visible, but Orsya insisted that our covering illusion held. We were still arguing the matter when she gave a little cry and pointed downstream, the way we had come. I turned my head.

There was something swimming there against the current, a vee of ripples, but nothing making them. I looked to the sword which I swung into readiness. The surface was cool and gray, no b.l.o.o.d.y runes along it. Yet something moved toward us at good speed and it was invisible.

XIII.

ORSYA TOOK ONE STEP and then another toward that rippling in the water. I had the testimony of my blade that it was no danger, yet the unseen and unknown will always be feared, for that is inherent in us.

"Kofi!"

At my companion's hail, the vee of ripples veered, pointed to Orsya. Then there were splashings and movements in the water as if whatever swam there was now treading water.

"What is it?" I demanded.

"Merfay," she answered before her lips shaped soft twitterings, not akin to any speech I have ever heard. Nor did "Merfay" mean anything to me.

The invisible one swam forward again, splashing us with waves made in his pa.s.sing. Orsya caught my hand once more.

"Come! Oh, this day we are favored! Kofi will lead us to a safe place."

"Can you see him-her-it?" I asked.

Her eyes went wide in surprise. "You do not?"

"Nothing but water rippling as if something swims there."

"But he is there-plain-"

"Not to me. Nor have I ever heard of a Merfay."

Orsya shook her head. "They are like unto us in some instances, save smaller, and closer akin to the furred and finned ones than we. Mostly they dwell apart, not needing others. But Kofi-he is of like mind with me, one who explores beyond the haunts of his people. We have shared ventures in the past. He is not subject to the illusions, since his mind is so unique he cannot be so entrapped. He has roamed the water lands here for a s.p.a.ce, watching to see what the enemies do. They are preparing for a great march of men, to the west-"

"The Valley!"

"Perhaps so. Yet, the hour has not yet come when they muster. They await some order or sending."

I thought of Dinzil and what Loskeetha said he might do, now that Kaththea was within his hands. The need to seek the Dark Tower, even though that seeking might lead to disaster, boiled within me. So that I quickened pace, pulling Orsya after me by our hand clasp. While ahead of us that guide I could only trace by ripples swam steadily onward.

More and more vegetation grew about. Orsya plundered here and there, finding more of those edible roots, cleaning them and storing them in her net bag. We munched some and they were better to me than the fish. Always the Merfay served as our scout. Once he (though it seemed odd to grant any ident.i.ty to a wedge of ripples) made a wide detour about a block of stone which had fallen into the river. Orsya followed his lead, beckoning me well away from any contact with it.

As we pa.s.sed, I saw that the stone had been dressed, and that once it might have been a pillar. There were others like it lying in confusion on the sh.o.r.e, as if they had been tumbled this way or that by some t.i.tanic blow of nature or man. They were not blue, as those in the havens experience had taught me to watch for, but rather a yellowish-gray, unpleasant to the eye.

"An ancient place of power," Orsya explained. "But no power we would wish to raise."

As we pa.s.sed that place, I felt a clammy chill, or perhaps my imagination furnished that.

The brush became trees, weirdly leafed, resembling the blasted forests we had found on the Escore side of the churned mountains, where the witch power had set the ancient barrier between Estcarp, the refuge, and this country, the threat. Those leaves might have been living, still they had a skeleton look which made one think of ashes, of something long since dead and dry. The gra.s.s was a tall, sword-edged, spiky growth which could cut skin if one were unwary, and there were other nasty-looking things which one certainly did not want to touch at all.

But among all this rank and poisoned vegetation, there were islets and ways which had normal looking foliage growing. The unseen Kofi turned into a side stream, banked by such growth, leading to our left.

I was still hazy about directions. This territory beyond the Heights made one unsure of any north or south. But I thought now we might be heading once more east, so further and further into the unknown.

Splashing began ahead as the stream grew more shallow. It would seem Kofi now walked as we did. My boots were almost rotted on my feet, and I wondered at how I would replace them to go overland. Perhaps bindings cut from my jerkin would serve.

The trees here were of a species which grew thickly along waterways. They arched over our heads, meeting in a canopy which, while it did not shut out all light, kept away the sun. Within that tenting floated wisps of the haze I had seen from the survey point back in the hills.

"Good!" Orsya broke the quiet for the first time since we had left the main river. "Our thanks must be to Kofi."

Her e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n appeared to be caused by the rise of a humpbacked hillock in the midst of the stream. It was, in spite of the brush growth rooted on it, too symmetrical to be a product of nature. My companion identified it.

"Aspt house, and very large. We shall find an entrance along the bank. The stream must have shrunk much since this was built and abandoned."

A branch waved vigorously at the bank, not pulled by any wind. Orsya laughed.

"We see, Kofi. Thanks to you again," and then she twittered.

There was a hole there. I pulled out a tangle of roots and some stones before we could crawl within, to find ourselves in a very darkish chamber like the one where Orsya had tended my wound. Luckily there were holes in the roof, where portions of the covering had fallen away, so that I was not moving blind. Our guide had led us well; we could not have found a more snug or safe place in which to spend the fast approaching night.

A small pattering noise drew my attention to the opposite side of the chamber. Nothing-or did Kofi now share our quarters?

"Right!" Orsya answered my thought. "I wonder . . . yes, let us try."

She edged around behind me and leaned forward to place her two hands on my forehead just above my eyes. "Watch," she ordered, "and tell me if you now see aught."

I blinked and then blinked again. A wisp of mist against the dusk? No, it was not the floating mist which had found its way inside, rather it was a shape taking form. So, I saw Kofi.

He was small, about as tall as my mid-thigh. Unlike the aspts, he was humanoid in form. That is, he had four limbs, of which the upper two appeared to function as arms. He was like, yet unlike, the lizard folk of the Valley. Though his skin was scaled, his feet and hands were webbed as Orsya's, the webs extending close to the tips of the digits. His head was round, and seemed to have very little neck. Front and back his body was covered by a sh.e.l.l which was shaped in a wedge, wide at the top, narrowing to a point between his legs. When I turned my attention on him, his head snapped down into the shoulder part of that shield, so that only the snout and two eyes could be seen.

"Kofi." Orsya took away her hand and there was nothing to be seen.

I put out my right hand in the universal peace sign, holding it palm up and empty. For want of better rea.s.surance to this strange water person I gave the formal greeting of the over-mountain men.

"To Kofi of the river, greeting and peace from Kemoc Tregarth."

There was another faint sound. Then, for an instant, on the thick scar of my wound ridge I felt a delicate touch, as if one of those webbed hands had rested there in acknowledgment of understanding that I meant well and was no unfriend.

Orsya opened her net and divided the roots she had harvested along the river, setting aside a half dozen of them. We ate, but Kofi did not share; I asked why.

"He has gone hunting. He will hunt for more than that to fill his middle, for he will bring us news of aught which comes near this clean place."

She gathered up the roots she had put aside and said: "Put these in your belt pouch, Kemoc. They will furnish food when you may need it. This is truly a land where you must heed Dahaun's warning, and eat not, even when it might seem that you look upon food you know well. Now, let us rest. With the morning may come great demands upon us."

Whether Kofi came back to share our shelter, I do not know. But this night I did not sleep sound. There was an abiding sense of something lurking just beyond the borders of what I could see. Whether it was aware of me and waiting to attack, of that I was not sure. In fact, perhaps I would have been less uneasy had I been certain that was so.

Orsya appeared no better at resting than I. I heard her stirring about. Then I saw a faint white spark and guessed that she had once more set up the cone-rod and with it wrought such protective magic as she knew.

We were both up and eager to go when the first gray of dawn lit up the deserted house. She had once more wound Kaththea's scarf about the horn, and she tried to impart to that tie with my sister some virtue of her talisman. "Kofi?" I looked to her for enlightenment.

"Waits us outside."

"We came into a thick mist curtain. There was a splash in the reeds and Orsya turned her head to twitter. She listened and then looked to me.

"The Tower lies ahead. But you must leave the water-ways to reach it and Kofi says it is spell-guarded. Most of the garrison who were once there have been sent away, and it is no longer warrior held, but protected in other ways. We can go with you to the beginning of the climb, but beyond that. . ." She shook her head. "Land for the Merfays is less hospitable even that it is for me. Without water I am only a burden. But what I can give you, I shall."

Once more the unseen Merfay splashed ahead of us. The mist was so thick that we were only shadows to one another as we moved. But the stream made a road we could not wander from. However, if this fog continued to hold elsewhere I did not see how I could find the Tower.

"Did I not say that this, and your heart"-Orsya held up an end of the scarf-"would be your guide? Wait and see before you despair."

Loskeetha's prophecies of death and disaster at the Tower . . . Perhaps I had escaped the third fate of the Valley meeting, but there remained the other two.

"No!" Orsya's thought struck sharply, to clash with those in my head. "Believe that you have no foreseen future, that you can control fate. Listen; if all else fails, and it seems that you have indeed to face what Loskeetha read in her sand, then-use the words which brought that answer. You can do no worse ill than Loskeetha showed you, and you may break fate by matching one power against another. It is a fearsome thing, but in times of great peril men will call upon any weapon."

The mist-filled world through which we moved held no sense of time. It was day because of the light, but how long since we had left our night's lodging, I could not tell. I was aware that the stream grew shallow, and that more and more reefs of rock broke it.

Orsya halted on one of these. "This is our parting place, Kemoc. Now-"

Slowly she unwound the scarf from the horn. Her mind was abruptly closed to me, but I think she was rapt for those moments in her own use of power, pouring into the scarf what she could to strengthen the tie between it and she who had once worn it. For a very long time it lay across her knees, with her hands-still holding the horn, as one might cup a lighted candle-resting on the bedraggled green stuff. Orsya's lips moved; she might have been chanting, without voicing aloud the words.

Then she made a scooping motion with the horn, caught its tip under the fabric and so flipped it over to me.

"What I can do, I have done. Think on your Kaththea, and see what comes of it. Remember, it must be the Kaththea with whom you were the most closely tied, even if she lives now only in the past."

I took up the length which was no longer whole, nor as bright in color as it had been when I had found it in the stone forest. I gathered it tightly in my closed fists while I did as she bade, or tried to.

How far back was the Kaththea with whom Kyllan and I had been truly one? Not in the Valley, nor during our journey into Escore, nor in those years when she had been in the Secret Place of the Wise Women, while Kyllan and I had plied our sword trade on the borders. So year by year I slipped back in time until I came to those days when we had been at Etsford, children still, when my mother had come riding with a stricken heart because Simon Tregarth, her lord, had vanished, no man knowing where, save that the sea had taken him.

Then we had been indeed one. I dragged from that well of memory the Kaththea I had known in those days before the discipline of the Wise Women had tried to mold her into their accepted image.

How true was my remembering I did not know, but that it was the way she seemed to me then, of that I was sure. I built her picture in my mind as vividly as I could.

That was Kaththea who was the third part of something greater than any one of us. Kaththea to whom I was tied past any breaking of bonds.

Then the silken stuff I prisoned in my hand seemed to fight against the pressure of my fingers. I released it and a green rope coiled upward, swung down to the ground. This time it did not form a loop, but writhed as might a snake across the rock.

So intent was I upon following it that it was not until later I realized I had said no farewell to Orsya, nor was I even sure I could find again that reef-ridge in the stream where I had left her. But I knew without being told that if I allowed other thoughts to distract me from the remembered image of Kaththea I would lose this guide.

I climbed the bank, giving my green ribbon full attention. Above the cut of the stream the mist thinned. For a s.p.a.ce there was good and wholesome foliage about me, as there had been all along the waterway. But that began to grow spa.r.s.er. Then came herbage of another kind which had the noxious look of evil growth. I had taken time by the stream to reinforce my boots with strips cut from my jerkin, and now my upper body was bare to the chill which lingered over the land.

On wriggled the scarf and I followed. The ground rose steadily, but as yet the slope was not difficult to breast. I kept the sword in my hand, looking now and then to it for the glowing of the danger runes.

Orsya had masked us in illusion. That would not hold for me alone. But as yet the land seemed deserted; that in itself struck me as strange and sinister, as if I walked now into a trap, my way made easy until the lock of the cage clicked behind me.

Up and up, and colder the air I shivered in. Kaththea . . . I sought Kaththea. She was to me as a missing arm, a part lopped off to leave me crippled.

Then the sword blazed scarlet. Someone came running lightly through the last tatters of the mist. She whom I sought! But the sword was red- "Brother!" Her hands reached for mine.

There had been another Kaththea who was illusion, who had almost tricked me once, in the garden of the Secret Place.

Or was this such a future as Loskeetha had seen. If I turned steel against this smiling girl, would my sister's blood flow over it?

Trust to the sword, Orsya had said. Fair is foul . . . if it says so.

"Kemoc!" Hands out . . . then that green ribbon flowed across the rock. She gave a croaking cry which could never rightfully burst from any human throat, as if that silken thing was a poisonous reptile. And I struck.

Blood fountained up to bathe the blade, showered in crimson drops over my hand. Where those drops touched my skin, fire ate. What lay writhing on the ground was a thing out of deep nightmare. It died still trying to reach me with great grasping claws.

Did he who ruled the Dark Tower know that I came? Or was the form this guard had used to mask its evil lifted just now from my mind? For the Kaththea who had run to meet me was the youthful Kaththea I thought on. I thrust the sword into the sand, whipping it back and forth to cleanse it of the smoking blood. The drops I smeared from my hand left blisters rising on the skin. Then I hurried to catch up with the green ribbon which had not paused.

It dropped over a bank into a road, rutted by use, and that not too long ago. To my unease the ribbon wriggled now in one of those ruts. But there was naught I could do, save follow, even though such a path must lead me directly to whatever guards Dinzil would have placed here.

Towering rocks walled in this way and, as it had been in the road away from Loskeetha, it seemed that things slid to peer, leer, threaten under the surface of the stone, to be sighted from the corners of one's eyes, to vanish when one looked directly.

I heard weeping as a low wail such as the wind might make, but it grew louder as I went. From the top of a rise I looked down into a cup, from which the road went up again on the far side. In that hollow was a woman of the Green People, her clothing rent from her, her bruised body lashed across a rock so that her spine was arched at a painful angle. She wailed and then babbled as might one who had pa.s.sed too far the threshold of pain and terror.

The sword flamed- Too good a touchstone was that for Dinzil's traps, or those I had met so far. It would be easy to pa.s.s this counterfeit of his devising, yet to leave a live enemy at my back-that was folly. So persuasive was the illusion that I had to force my hand to the use of the warning sword.

The woman vanished as blood ran. There was a man in her place, choking in death. Man? He had a human body, and human features, but what I saw in the hate-filled eyes he turned upon me, what he screamed as he died-those were not of mankind.

A dead monster, a dead seeming-man. Did Dinzil know when they died? Did I so alert him against my coming?

I pulled up to the top of the rise beyond the cup and saw it.

This was the Dark Tower of Loskeetha's pictures. I hesitated; two visions she had shown me. In one I would meet with some bewilderment before I reached the Tower and, during that, cut down Kaththea. Therefore, beware; watch for any troubling. . . .

The green ribbon flowed on to where that black finger pointed as if in defiance to the sky.

It was in truth, a dark tower. The stone of its walls was black; it had about it that suggestion of terrible age which was in Es City, in some of the places where the Wise Women carried out their sorceries. As if not only the years men knew had pa.s.sed over it, but another withering and aging which was not of our reckoning.